YouTubed: A Series (Featuring The Simple Cooking Channel)

I decided about three & a half years ago that we should get rid of our TV. This was just before TV switched to digital in Canada & our old CRT analog set would have required upgrading to even see the free channels like CBC. Ditching the boob tube wasn't a sudden thing--we didn't have cable back then anyway. I've actually never had a cable subscription, so TV hasn't been super important to my adult life.

My main reason for getting it out of our lives was Linnaeus. Despite the fact that we only had three or four channels with our rabbit ears, I still kept the thing on for hours a day & found myself staring blankly at somewhat lame cop dramas or three newscasts in one evening. Linnaeus was right there with me & at nearly a year old, he was starting to pay attention to the TV too. I'm sure you've probably read the guidelines on safe TV watching for kids--no screen time for under two years old & then limited to an hour a day for ages two to four. (source: Canadian Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines)

All that said, I'm not totally anti-television & I do follow a few TV series online. I find watching video online--mainly on YouTube--to be somehow easier to limit to small chunks of time. There's no schedule & we can watch what we want whenever, so I don't find we're planning our lives around a show.

I sometimes use YouTube playlists to keep Linnaeus occupied so I can have a shower or get dinner made. When we watch YouTube together, we usually view how-to videos & documentaries. There are a ton of channels that are quite high quality & even educational--I discover new ones all the time. So I thought I'd start profiling the ones I like here on Spokesmama every week or so.

So here's the first of my series, a review of The Simple Cooking Channel.

This one is a favourite of Linnaeus. He actually pretends to do cooking shows & uses some of the same phrases as this Australian vlogger here while he's making something. The Simple Cooking Channel is exactly what it says: vlogger Jason puts together easy dishes--mostly desserts--with very few ingredients. You won't find gourmet organic health food here, it's purely comfort foods & guilt snacks for one when you need to eat some feelings: ice cream, cakes decorated for the holidays, homemade versions of candy bars, desserts with just three or four ingredients, giant gummy bears.

The format of every episode is simple too--just Jason in his home kitchen with photos of his toddler stuck to his fridge in the background & then closeups of the ingredients as he puts it together. His trademark is his goofy effusiveness at the end where he tastes what he's made. Another thing I like about his videos is that they're totally kid-friendly--no 'bad' language--& the recipes are really very easy to do with children.

Check out The Simple Cooking channel on YouTube

Here's one of the recipes I have tried:

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